In the 17th century, England was able to start successful colonies in
the Americas.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE [ edit ]
Analyze and recall the early colonization attempts of the English Colonial Empire.
KEY POINTS [ edit ]
The Spanish owned the southern part of the American east coast until the middle of the 18th
century. The French controlled the northern part, and, until the middle of the 17th century, the
Dutch controlled the mid-Atlantic region.
The London Virginia Company created the first successful English overseas settlements at
Jamestown in 1607.
The Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629 with 400 settlers.
Sir Walter Raleigh established the lost colony of Roanoke in the late 16th-century.
The colonial South included Virginia, Maryland, and Georgia.
The Middle Colonies consisted of the present-day states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
and Delaware.
The first attempted English settlement south of Virginia was theProvince of Carolina in 1670.
James Oglethorpe established the Georgia Colony in 1733.
The colonial South included Virginia, Maryland, and Georgia.
The Middle Colonies consisted of the present-day states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
and Delaware.
TERMS [ edit ]
Plymouth Company
An English joint stock company founded in 1606 by James I of England with the purpose of
establishing settlements on the coast of North America. Also called the Virginia Company of
Plymouth or the Virginia Bay Company.
London Virginia Company
An English joint stock company established by royal charter by James I of England on April 10,
1606, with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America. Also called the
Charter of the Virginia Company of London.
puritan
acting or behaving according to the Puritan morals (e.g. propagating modesty), especially with
regard to pleasure, nudity, and sex
Give us feedback on this content: FULL TEXT [ edit ]
The English colonial empire comprised a variety of overseas territories settled by England
between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. In North America, Virginia and Newfoundland
were the first centers of English colonization. As the 17th century wore on, Maine, New
Hampshire, Salem, Massachusetts Bay, New Scotland, Connecticut, Maryland, and Rhode
Island and Providence were settled. In 1664, New Netherland and New Sweden were taken
from the Dutch, becoming New York, New Jersey, and parts of Delaware and Pennsylvania.
In 1501, King Henry VII of England commissioned John Cabot to lead a voyage to find a route
from the Atlantic to the Spice Islands of Asia, subsequently known as the search for the North
West Passage. Cabot sailed in 1497, successfully making landfall on the coast of
Newfoundland. Encouraged, he led another voyage to the Americas the following year, but
nothing was heard of him or his ships again.
Before the British Colonies
Prior to the arrival of the British, Spain was well established in the Americas. France began
sending explorers into modern-day Canada and the upper Midwest in the 1520s, establishing
trading posts and developing working relationships with many Indian tribes. The Dutch
settled New Amsterdam in modern-day New York City. The Dutch empire stretched from
Fort Orange (today called Albany) into modern day New Jersey. By 1600, the Spanish
empire in the Western hemisphere stretched from California to Florida, down through
Mexico and Central America, and all the way to the tip of Argentina.
Early British Attempts to Colonize
The first serious attempts to establish English colonies overseas were made in the last quarter
of the 16th century, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Financed by the Muscovy Company,
Martin Frobisher set sail in 1576, seeking the North West Passage. In August 1576, he landed
at Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island. In 1578, he reached the shores of Greenland and made an
unsuccessful attempt at founding a settlement in Frobisher Bay. At the same time, between
1577 and 1580, Sir Francis Drake was circumnavigating the globe. In 1579 he landed
somewhere on the western coast of North America, claiming the area for Elizabeth as "New
Albion".
In 1584, Queen Elizabeth I granted Sir Walter Raleigh a charterfor the colonization of an area
of North America which was to be called Virginia. Raleigh and Elizabeth intended that the
venture should provide riches from the New World and a base from which to
send privateers on raids against the treasure fleets of Spain. He called his new privatelyfunded colony Roanoke, and founded it on an island off the coast of present-day North
Carolina, where it would be relatively isolated from existing settlements in North America.
and it lasted from 1584 to 1587. The colony lasted from 1584 to 1587, when it disappeared
during an English war with Spanish.
England made its first successful efforts at the start of the 17thcentury. Most of the new
English colonies established in North America and the West Indies, whether successful or
otherwise, were proprietary colonies, with Proprietors who were appointed to found and
govern settlements under mercantile charters granted to joint stock companies. Soon there
was an explosion of English colonial activity, driven by men seeking new land, by the pursuit
of trade, and by the search for religious freedom.
Main Settlement
The main waves of settlement came in the 17th century . After 1700,
most immigrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured servants—young unmarried men
and women seeking a new life in a much richer environment.
The First English Settlements
The First English Settlements
In 1606, James I sold a charter containing lands between present-day South Carolina and the
US-Canada border to two competing groups of investors . The Plymouth Company was given
the northern portions, and the London Company was given the southern portions. The
Northern Plymouth settlement in Maine faltered and was abandoned. However,
the LondonVirginia Company created the first successful English overseas settlements
at Jamestown in 1607. Its first years were extremely difficult, with very high death rates from
disease and starvation, wars with local Indians, and little gold. The colony survived and
flourished by developing tobacco as a cash crop for the colony; it served as a beginning for the
colonial state of Virginia.
London Company and Plymouth Company Grants
The 1606 grants by James I to the London and Plymouth companies. The overlapping area (yellow)
was granted to both companies on the stipulation that neither found a settlement within 100 miles
(160 km) of each other. The location of the Jamestown Settlement is shown by "J"
The Puritans (a much larger group than the Pilgrims) established the Massachusetts Bay
Colony in 1629 with 400 settlers. They fled England, and in America attempted to create a
"nation of saints" or a "City upon a Hill": that is, an intensely religious, thoroughly righteous
community designed to be an example for all of Europe. Other colonists who disagreed with
Puritans in Massachusetts settled to the north, mingling with adventurers and profit-oriented
settlers to establish more religiously diverse colonies in New Hampshire and Maine.
Unlike the cash crop-oriented plantations of the Chesapeake region, the
Puritan economy was based on the efforts of self-supporting farmsteads who traded only for
goods they could not produce themselves. Along with agriculture, fishing, and logging, New
England became an important mercantile andshipbuilding center, serving as the hub for
trading between the southern colonies and Europe.
The Middle Colonies, consisting of the present-day states of New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, and Delaware, were characterized by a large degree of diversity—religious,
political, economic, and ethnic. In 1664, England took over the Dutch colony of New
Netherland, including New Amsterdam, and renamed it the Province of New York.
Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 as a proprietary colony of the Quaker William Penn.
The colonial South included the plantation colonies of the Chesapeake region, Virginia and
Maryland, and the lower South colonies of Carolina and Georgia. Carolina was not settled
until 1670. The original settlers in South Carolina established a lucrative trade in provisions,
deerskins, and Indian captives with the Caribbean Islands. The settlers came mainly from the
English colony of Barbados, and brought African slaves with them.